BETRAYAL AND ITS SOURCES (VERSE NO. 27)

      ``O, you who believe! Betray not Allah and the Messenger, and betray not your trusts knowingly.''

      Here, trusts of God and His Messenger may mean confidences, secrets, and military plans; though it may also be property, goods, knowledge, talents, opportunities which we are expected be used for our fellow men.

      Men may betray the trust when plans for the protection of believers against annihilation are of special importance in military services, and he has not guarded them with the necessary care. Or when he leaves behind and ignores Divine Commandments. To this effect, IBN- ABBAS has said: ``He who abandoned or forsook any part of an Islamic programme has somehow betrayed Allah and His Messenger.''

      So also the trust of God is his religion, and the trust of the prophet is his methodical way, which have been deposited with us, and the trust of the believer is their secrets that we should not divulge.

      Even if a thing trusted to a Muslim belongs to a heathen, the Muslim must keep it safe and return it in due time to its owner.

      The next verse (No. 28), gives a warning to man; lest the secular affairs, and temporal worldly things, may throw dust upon their eyes, making them blindfold, so that they see not their dangerous errs and heinous sins. Our children and wealth are indeed trials and tests; and the extent to which one may have attachment and affection to them, is a measure of our success and failure in the test. True that children, properties, and possessions are a source of power and dignity, but they are also a means of test and trial, and a cause of anxiety and trouble. So they can even turn to a source of spiritual downfall, if we mishandle them, or love them more than we may love God and truth. Perhaps this is the reason why the verse ends in: ``With Allah is a great reward.''

      That is to say; whatever the profit and advantage of your children and your wealth might be, the reward which is with Allah is far better and much more.